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Re: [TCML] pole pig ballasting
Hi Garry,
Did you say that you are located in Huntsville? You
seem to be in a "hotbed" of coilers ;^) New member
Phillip Slawinski is also in Huntsville and Cameron
Prince is in Decatur. I'm "realatively" close to you,
in Memphis, TN. Cameron and Phillip just made the
3 1/2 hour drive to my place this past Friday. We
had a nice little "Mid-South mini-Teslathon" and
Phillip brought his new coil. We also fired my two
big coils that evening.
As far as pole pig ballasting, the Lincoln 225 amp
"tombstone" arc welders are the down and dirty
easiest way to ballast a pig. What is the primary
(secondary for us coilers) voltage of your pig? If
it's just a 7200 volt unit, it will be a bit of challenge
to get the spark gap to reliably fire and quench do
to the relatively low voltage with the high power.
Most coilers like the 14,400 volt units for this rea-
son. BTW, that 50 kVA unit will handle more power
than you could ever process through it from standard
residential electrical service. I use a "mere" 10 kVA,
14,400 volt unit to drive my Green Monster coil sys-
tem at up to 90 amps at over 200 volts input from my
(4) stack 1256D varaics and I have never gotten the
outer tank case to get the slightest bit warm over am-
bient temperature. You can see some outdated pics
of this coil system at:
http://www.dawntreader.net/hvgroup/david/gm.html
Although the transformer pic shows a 15 kVA unit,
I now am using a 10 kVA unit.
Give me a holler if you should ever decide to head
toward Memphis.
.
David
--
David Rieben
-------------- Original message --------------
From: "garry neeley" <bamacoiler@xxxxxxxxx>
> I'm located in huntsville AL. The pig is large but not as big as me. It
> stands about 4 feet and weighs over 600 lbs tho. That lincoln would be
> ideal but how much do you think shipping would be?
>
> On Wed, Jul 16, 2008 at 11:03 PM, Jim Mora wrote:
>
> > Garry,
> >
> > Where are you located with that giant PIG, SOW that's the one that's bigger
> > than you yes? Anyway, I have a Lincoln Tombstone 225 which is old enough to
> > be copper wound - works great. I'll sell it for $75. It will tame that
> > beast. Shipping is an issue these days! If you must drop the voltage, use
> > the arc welder (in series of course) on the output of the variac if I
> > remember correctly. I have several ballasts now. I sold my Thunderbolt too.
> > You could stack 3 of those variacs on the same shaft. Then we revisit the
> > balancing chokes though. The Lincoln won't pass much more than 50-60 amps
> > at
> > full tilt though so 2 variacs would be ideal.
> >
> > I'm in So. Ca.
> >
> > Jim Mora
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: tesla-bounces@xxxxxxxxxx [mailto:tesla-bounces@xxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf
> > Of Jon Danniken
> > Sent: Wednesday, July 16, 2008 1:37 PM
> > To: Tesla Coil Mailing List
> > Subject: Re: [TCML] pole pig ballasting
> >
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "garry neeley"
> > >> Which brings me to the question,
> > >> how could I ballast the pig to only draw 30 amps @240v. (on a budget)
> >
> > Buy an 240VAC arc welder on Craigslist; around here they go for between
> > $50.00 and $100.00. If you get a Miller (Thunderbolt), it has an
> > infinitely
> >
> > adjustable shunt, whereas the Lincoln ("tombstone") units just have
> > different taps; you might find a Montgomery Wards or Century unit; they
> > also
> >
> > work fine, and are often a lot cheaper due to not being a "brand" name.
> > The
> >
> > bonus is that you also get an arc welder to play around with.
> >
> > The way you hook it up is to short the "Work" and "Electrode" outputs on
> > the
> >
> > front of the welder, then wire the 220VAC feeding the welder in series with
> > your variac. Adjust the shunt or use a different tap until you get the
> > required current limiting.
> >
> > Jon
> >
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> >
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